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Veal, Braised, with Truffles

A braised veal dish flavored with truffles, ham, and aromatic spices, served with a rich gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Truffle and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Veal, Braised, with Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Remove the chine-bone from the veal.

  2. Cut the bones short.

  3. Slice off the skin and flesh to a depth of ⅛ inch.

  4. Spread 2 ounces of butter and 3 sliced truffles on the veal. Restore the slice to its original position.

  5. Sew it securely with twine.

Braise

  1. Butter a stewpan and cover the bottom with a thin slice of ham.

  2. Place the veal on the ham and surround it with bones, trimmings, carrot, onion, mushroom, sugar, mace, nutmeg, coriander seed, and garlic.

  3. Pour ½ pint of stock or water over the ingredients. Cover the saucepan.

  4. Simmer gently for 2.5 hours. Skim the liquid and baste the meat frequently.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the veal and keep it hot in the oven.

  2. Skim the fat from the gravy. Strain it through a fine sieve with the vegetables.

  3. Let the gravy boil. Add a glass of sherry or Madeira if desired.

  4. Serve the veal on a dish and pour the gravy over it.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Carrot + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,796 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the dish; long, gentle braising makes it tender.
Truffles
Contribute a strong earthy aroma that perfumes the meat and gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries the truffle flavour into the meat.
Stock or water
Provides the moist braising liquid that becomes the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 2.5 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the liquid below a hard boil, so the meat braises slowly and stays tender instead of tightening and drying out. Frequent basting keeps the surface moist.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, truffle, ham, carrot, onion, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, truffle, ham, carrot, onion, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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